1.
© 2015, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
Joshua Burgin
October 2015
CMP311
This One Weird API Request
Will Save You Thousands

2.
What is Amazon EC2 Spot
Amazon EC2 Spot instances are spare EC2 instances that you can bid on to
run your cloud computing applications. Spot instances are available at lower
prices than On-Demand, so you can significantly reduce the cost of running
your applications, grow your application’s compute capacity and throughput
for the same budget, and enable new types of cloud computing applications.
$1

3.
Spare capacity at scale
AWS has more than a
million active customers
in 190 countries.
Amazon EC2 instance
usage has increased 93%
YoY, comparing Q4 2014
and Q4 2013, not
including Amazon use.
Amazon S3 holds trillions
of objects and regularly
peaks at millions of
requests per second.

4.
“By using AWS Spot instances, we've been able to save $15,000 a
month simply by changing four lines of code. It makes perfect sense for
saving money when you're running continuous integration workloads or
pipeline processing.” - Matthew Leventi, Lead Engineer, Lyft
Why use Spot?
39 years of drug research re-processed, using over 80,000 cores, in 9
hours for $4,232Petabyte-Scale Data Pipelines with Docker, Luigi and Elastic Spot
Instances
$1

5.
With Spot the rules are simple
Markets where the price of
compute changes based on
supply and demand
You’ll never pay more than your
bid. When the market exceeds
your bid you get 2 minutes to
wrap up your work

6.
Amazon EC2 Spot – in the wild
1) We make this easy using the
Spot bid advisor
2) With deliberate pool
selection and bidding, you
will keep your Spot instance
as long as you need to.
3) And with new features like
Spot fleet diversified we do
the heavy lifting for you...

7.
$0.27 $0.29$0.50
1b 1c1a
8XL
$0.30 $0.16$0.214XL
$0.07 $0.08$0.082XL
$0.05 $0.04$0.04XL
$0.01 $0.04$0.01L
C3
$1.76
On
Demand
$0.88
$0.44
$.22
$0.11
Show me the markets!
Each instance family
Each instance size
Each Availability Zone
In every region
Is a separate Spot Market

8.
50% Bid
75% Bid
You pay the
market
price
Bid Price vs. Market Price
25% Bid

9.
And now…
NEW STUFF

10.
Spot fleet helps you Fly Like a Pro
Launch Thousands of Spot Instances
with one RequestSpotFleet call.
Best Price
Find the lowest priced horsepower that works for you.
or
Diversified
Diversify your fleet. Grow your availability.
And
Custom Weighting
Create your own capacity unit based on your application
needs

11.
EC2 Spot fleet
Spot fleet API launched [May 18, 2015]
Spot instances in the lowest priced Availability Zone
[Jul 24, 2015]
Weighted Bidding for EC2 Spot Instances [Aug 31,
2015]
Distribute Your Fleet Across Multiple Capacity Pools
[Sep 15, 2015]
Modify Your Fleet [Sept 30, 2015]

12.
It is easy!
aws ec2 request-spot-fleet --spot-fleet-request-config { "IamFleetRole":
"arn:aws:iam::781603563322:role/fleet-role", "TargetCapacity": "100",
"SpotPrice": "0.03", "ValidFrom": "2015-09-15T00:56:19Z", "ValidUntil": "2016-
09-14T07:00:00Z", "TerminateInstancesWithExpiration": true,
"LaunchSpecifications": [ { "ImageId": "ami-0d4cfd66", "InstanceType":
"c3.large", "WeightedCapacity": 2, "SubnetId": "subnet-d0dc51fb" }, { "ImageId":
"ami-0d4cfd66", "InstanceType": "c3.large", "WeightedCapacity": 2, "SubnetId":
"subnet-64531413" }, { "ImageId": "ami-0d4cfd66", "InstanceType": "c3.large",
"WeightedCapacity": 2, "SubnetId": "subnet-0b1b8052" }, { "ImageId": "ami-
0d4cfd66", "InstanceType": "c3.xlarge", "WeightedCapacity": 4, "SubnetId":
"subnet-d0dc51fb" }, { "ImageId": "ami-0d4cfd66", "InstanceType": "c3.xlarge",
"WeightedCapacity": 4, "SubnetId": "subnet-64531413" }, { "ImageId": "ami-
0d4cfd66", "InstanceType": "c3.xlarge", "WeightedCapacity": 4, "SubnetId":
"subnet-0b1b8052" }, { "ImageId": "ami-0d4cfd66", "InstanceType": "c3.4xlarge",
"WeightedCapacity": 16, "SubnetId": "subnet-d0dc51fb" }, { "ImageId": "ami-
0d4cfd66", "InstanceType": "c3.4xlarge", "WeightedCapacity": 16, "SubnetId":
"subnet-64531413" }, { "ImageId": "ami-0d4cfd66", "InstanceType": "c3.4xlarge",
"WeightedCapacity": 16, "SubnetId": "subnet-0b1b8052" }, { "ImageId": "ami-
0d4cfd66", "InstanceType": "c3.8xlarge", "WeightedCapacity": 32, "SubnetId":
"subnet-d0dc51fb" }, { "ImageId": "ami-0d4cfd66", "InstanceType": "c3.8xlarge",
"WeightedCapacity": 32, "SubnetId": "subnet-64531413" }, { "ImageId": "ami-
0d4cfd66", "InstanceType": "c3.8xlarge", "WeightedCapacity": 32, "SubnetId":
"subnet-0b1b8052" }, { "ImageId": "ami-0d4cfd66", "InstanceType": "c3.2xlarge",
"WeightedCapacity": 8, "SubnetId": "subnet-d0dc51fb" }, { "ImageId": "ami-
0d4cfd66", "InstanceType": "c3.2xlarge", "WeightedCapacity": 8, "SubnetId":
"subnet-64531413" }, { "ImageId": "ami-0d4cfd66", "InstanceType": "c3.2xlarge",
"WeightedCapacity": 8, "SubnetId": "subnet-0b1b8052" } ] }

13.
1) An easy to use interface that
lets you launch spare EC2
instances in seconds
2) Helps you select and bid on the
EC2 instances that meet your
applications requirements
3) Simple to use dashboard
lets you modify and manage
your application’s compute
capacity
EC2 Spot Console – [Launched Sept 30th]

14.
Using a single
additional parameter
Run continuously
for up to 6 hours
Save up to 50% off
on-demand pricing
EC2 Spot blocks – [NEW!]
$1

15.
What’s in 6 hours?
~ 21% less than 1 hour
~ 35% less than 2 hours
~ 40% less than 3 hours
In total roughly 50% of all
instances live less than 6
hours

16.
Lets see EC2 Spot in action..
Best Practices
Hadoop
Stateless Applications (e.g. web tiers)
Batch processing

17.
EC2 Best practices
Fault tolerance
for Spot
Stateless Multi-AZ Loosely coupled
Instance
Flexibility

18.
EC2 Spot – Hadoop

19.
Core nodes
Master
Node
Master instance group
Hadoop cluster
Core instance group
HDFS HDFS
DataNode (HDFS)

20.
Core nodes
Master
Node
Master instance group
Hadoop cluster
Core instance group
HDFS HDFS
Can Add Core
Nodes:
More CPU
More Memory
More HDFS Space
HDFS

21.
Task nodes – Spot the opportunity
Master
Node
Hadoop cluster
HDFS HDFS
No HDFS
Provides compute
resources:
CPU
Memory
Core instance group Task instance group

22.
Task Nodes – Multiple Instance Types
Master
Node
Hadoop cluster
HDFS HDFS
Can add and
remove task nodes
c3.8xl, r3.8xl, r3.4xl, etc
The
opportunity
Core instance group

23.
Multiple capacity pools
How flexible are you?
2. Across Families
3. Across Zones
1. Within family

24.
Review and launch
{
"AllocationStrategy": "diversified",
"TargetCapacity": 1000,
"SpotPrice": "0.005",
"TerminateInstancesWithExpiration": true,
"LaunchSpecifications": [
{
"ImageId": "ami-0d4cfd66",
"InstanceType": "c3.xlarge",
"WeightedCapacity": 4,
"SpotPrice": "0.0263",
"SubnetId": "subnet-d0dc51fb"
},
{
"ImageId": "ami-0d4cfd66",
"InstanceType": "c3.2xlarge",
"WeightedCapacity": 8,
"SpotPrice": "0.0263",
"SubnetId": "subnet-d0dc51fb"
},

25.
Results - Hadoop
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
250
350
450
550
650
750
850
950
1050
1150
Number of Cores Running Average Hourly Price Per Core
Requested 1000
vCores over 30 days
Minimum 848 vCores
Mode 1008 vCores
Average 1005 vCores
Average Price of
$0.0118 per vCore
Savings of over 81%

26.
But what about HDFS?
Master
Node
Hadoop cluster
HDFS HDFS
Can add and
remove task nodes
CORE TASK
cc2.8xl, r3.8xl, d2.4xl, etc
Spot Blocks Or EMR/S3

27.
• No need to scale HDFS
– Capacity
– Replication for durability
• Amazon S3 scales with your
data
– Both in IOPs and data storage
– Massively parallel
EMRFS - Amazon
S3 as HDFS
Spot blocks for HDFS
• If HDFS cluster lives for
less than 6 hours

28.
Hadoop on EC2 Spot – takeaways
Your Work
Run task nodes separately with EC2 Spot fleet
Consider Spot blocks for core/HDFS nodes
What EC2 Spot fleet does for you
Saves you money
Heterogeneous instance management
Scale on the unit that matters to you
Accelerate results (time is money)

29.
Whodunit?

30.
Web Applications with Spot

31.
Stateless Web Application
Elastic Load
Balancing
Stateless
Web Servers
(Spot)
Stateless
Web Servers
(Spot)
Session
State Data
Spot fleet
Availability Zone A
Availability Zone B
Stateless
Web Servers
(Spot)
Stateless
Web Servers
(Spot)

32.
Diversification with EC2 Spot fleet
Multiple EC2 Spot instances
selected
Multiple Availability Zones
selected
Pick the instances with similar
performance characteristics e.g.
c3.large, m3.large, m4.large,
r3.large, c4.large.

33.
Multiple capacity pools
How flexible are you?
2. Across Families
3. Across Zones
1. Within family

34.
Review and Launch {
"AllocationStrategy": "diversified",
"TargetCapacity": 50,
"SpotPrice": "0.01",
"LaunchSpecifications": [
{
"ImageId": "ami-0d4cfd66",
"InstanceType": "c3.large",
"SpotPrice": "0.105"
},
{
"ImageId": "ami-0d4cfd66",
"InstanceType": "c4.large",
"SpotPrice": "0.11"
},
{
"ImageId": "ami-0d4cfd66",
"InstanceType": "m3.large",
"SpotPrice": "0.133"
},

35.
Results - Web Application
50 instances requested,
over 30 days.
- Never dropped
below 45 instances
- 85% discount if you
wanted 50 and
could withstand
dropping to 45
0
0.02
0.04
0.06
0.08
0.1
0.12
30
35
40
45
50
55
Instances Average Price Per Instance
- If you only wanted
45 the discount is
still 83%

36.
Some additional considerations
Session state
Elastic Load Balancing
Two minute warning

37.
Session state for the web application in DynamoDB.
• Data replicated across availability zones.
You can also choose other databases to maintain state in
your architecture.
• Amazon RDS using Multi-AZ deployments
• Amazon Elasticache
Where to store the state?

38.
Since Spot fleet is configured to
span across multiple Availability
Zones, we highly recommend
enabling cross-zone load
balancing for the load balancer.
To allow in-flight requests to
complete when de-registering Spot
instances that are about to be
terminated, connection draining
can be enabled on the load
balancer with a timeout of 90
seconds.
Elastic Load Balancing

39.
Capitalizing on two minute warning
When the Spot price exceeds
your bid price, the instance will
receive a two-minute warning
Check for the 2 minute spot
instance termination
notification every 5 seconds
leveraging a script invoked at
instance launch

40.
Sample script – two minutes left!
1) Check for 2 minute
warning
2) If YES, detach instance
from ELB
3) OTHERWISE, do nothing
4) Sleep for 5 seconds
$ if curl -s
http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-
data/spot/termination-time |
grep -q .*T.*Z; then instance_id=$(curl -
s http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-
data/instance-id);
aws elb deregister-instances-from-load-
balancer
--load-balancer-name my-load-balancer
--instances $instance_id;
/env/bin/flushsessiontoDBonterminationscri
pt.sh; fi

41.
For those of you - Using Auto Scaling
Two Auto Scaling groups
• On-demand + Reserved for
base use
• Add an additional Auto Scaling
group with Spot
Both Auto Scaling groups behind
the same Elastic Load Balancer.
Use the bid advisor to select the
right instance time for your
application.

42.
Web Application Architecture with Spot
Elastic Load
Balancing
Stateless
Web Servers
Stateless
Web Servers
On Demand Auto
Scaling group
Session
State Data
Stateless Web
Servers (Spot)
Stateless Web
Servers (Spot)
Spot Auto
Scaling group
Availability Zone A
Availability Zone B
On-Demand
ASG
Spot ASG

43.
Whodunit?

44.
Batch Processing with
Amazon EC2 Spot

45.
Batch oriented applications can leverage on-demand
processing using EC2 Spot to save up to 90% cost:
Batch Processing with Amazon EC2 Spot
Monte Carlo
simulation
Molecular
modeling
Media
processing
High energy
simulations

46.
AWS cloud
Region
Amazon
S3
DynamoDB
Amazon SQS
CloudWatch172.16.0.0/16
Internet
gateway
region-1a -
172.16.0.0/20
region-1b -
172.16.16.0/20
region-1c -
172.16.32.0/20
region-1d -
172.16.48.0/20
Cluster
Controller
c3.4x Spot r3.4x Spot c3.4x Spot r3.4x Spot
c3.4x Spot r3.4x Spot
Grid processing with Amazon EC2 Spot

47.
Common method Batch Processing
Once completed, the objects will be uploaded back to S3 using multi-part
upload
Each job can be further split into multiples sub-parts if there is a mechanism
to stitch the outputs together
Store the input objects in a file system such as Amazon Elastic File System
(Amazon EFS), local instance store or Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS)
Worker nodes get job parts from the SQS and perform single tasks based on
the job task state in DynamoDB

48.
EC2 Spot fleet to setup a
heterogeneous, scalable “grid”
of EC2 spot instances with
multiple capacity pools as
worker nodes
Scaling to 50,000 cores
EC2 Spot blocks for less
flexible jobs that must run
continuously.

49.
Multiple capacity pools
How flexible are you?
2. Across Families
3. Across Zones
1. Within family

50.
Review and Launch
{
"AllocationStrategy": "diversified",
"TargetCapacity": 1000,
"SpotPrice": "0.0025",
"LaunchSpecifications": [
{
"ImageId": "ami-0d4cfd66",
"InstanceType": "c3.4xlarge",
"WeightedCapacity": 16,
"SpotPrice": "0.0131",
"SubnetId": "subnet-d0dc51fb"
},
{
"ImageId": "ami-0d4cfd66",
"InstanceType": "c3.4xlarge",
"WeightedCapacity": 16,
"SpotPrice": "0.0131",
"SubnetId": "subnet-64531413"
},
{
"ImageId": "ami-0d4cfd66",

51.
Results - Grid
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
0.3
0.35
0.4
0.45
0.5
250
350
450
550
650
750
850
950
1050
1150
Number of Cores Running Average Hourly Price Per Core
Requested 1000
vCores over 30 days
Minimum 960 vCores
Mode 1024 vCores
Average 1012 vCores
Average Price of $0.012
per vCore
Savings of over 80%

52.
Capitalizing on two minute warning
When the Spot price exceeds
your bid price, the instance will
receive a two-minute warning
Check for the 2 minute spot
instance termination
notification every 5 seconds
leveraging a script invoked at
instance launch

53.
Sample script – two minutes left!
1) Check for 2 minute warning
2) If YES, run shutdown scripts
3) OTHERWISE, do nothing
4) Then sleep for 5 seconds
#!/bin/bash
while true
do
if curl -s
http://169.254.169.254/latest/meta-
data/spot/termination-time | grep -q
.*T.*Z; then
/env/bin/runterminationscripts.sh;
else
# Spot instance not yet marked for
termination.
sleep 5
fi
done

54.
Run continuously
for up to 6 hours
Save up to 50% off
On-Demand pricing
Don’t forget Blocks!
Using a single
additional Parameter
$1

55.
Whodunit?

56.
Summary
AWS is Spare
Capacity at Scale
We Do the
Heavy Lifting
You Pocket
the Savings!
$1

57.
Getting started
Try the Bid Advisor Fire up the Spot Console Block some time

58.
Thank you!

59.
Remember to complete
your evaluations!

60.
Reference Links
EC2 Spot Documentation:
http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/spot/
http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/spot/bid-advisor/
http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/spot/getting-started/
http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/spot/faqs/
http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/spot/testimonials/
User Guide
http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/using-spot-instances.html
http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/spot-fleet.html
Helpful AWS Blog Posts
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/focusing-on-spot-instances-lets-talk-about-best-practices/
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/building-price-aware-applications-using-ec2-spot-instances/
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/compute/cost-effective-batch-processing-with-amazon-ec2-spot/
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/compute/dynamic-scaling-with-ec2-spot-fleet/

61.
Related Sessions
CMP310 - Building Robust Data Processing Pipelines Using Containers
and Spot Instances. – Tomorrow!
ARC302 - Running Lean Architectures: How to Optimize for Cost
Efficiency. – Tomorrow!
CMP201 - All You Need To Know About Auto Scaling. – Tomorrow!
BDT208 - A Technical Introduction to Amazon Elastic MapReduce
CMP404 - Cloud Rendering at Walt Disney Animation Studios
CMP307 - Using Spot Instances for Production Workloads